A hotline for unhappiness, staffed by two employees who could not be less alike, is the entire premise of Smiling Friends, the short-form animated comedy from Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack that first aired in 2020.
What is Smiling Friends about?
Smiling Friends Inc. is a tiny company with an enormous mission statement: make the world smile. Every episode opens with the phone ringing. Pim, boundlessly optimistic, treats each caller as a person worth saving; Charlie, his colleague, would prefer to be left alone and rarely hides it. The pair leave the office to meet whoever called, and the job that sounded simple on the line quickly becomes anything but. The people they visit are stubborn, strange or sunk so deep in their own misery that no amount of good cheer can reach them, and the comedy lives in the gap between the company's promise and the chaos it produces. The drawing style can lurch from one register to another without warning, and a gentle errand can end somewhere close to a fever dream. At around twelve minutes an episode, a premise is set up, pushed to breaking point and dropped before it grows stale.
About the cast
The principal voice cast is Michael Cusack, Zach Hadel and Marc M., with Hadel also credited as director. Because the people who write and draw the show also perform it, a pause, a mumble or a half-finished sentence lands on the exact frame that sells it. The performances lean toward understatement and let the absurd imagery do the shouting.
Context & significance
Smiling Friends is a United States and Australia co-production, reflecting the backgrounds of its two lead voices and the internet-animation scene both came from. It belongs to a wave of adult cartoons built for dense, rewatchable gags rather than long story arcs, and its short runtime places it in the short category alongside animation and comedy. Since its 2020 debut the series has been strongly reviewed and has built a devoted following, with viewers often citing its visual unpredictability and its refusal to explain its own jokes. The tone is cheerful on the surface and frequently bleak underneath.
Watching Smiling Friends on Ktime
Smiling Friends streams on K-Time for signed-in members, with a Persian dub and Persian subtitles available, and the K-Time interface can be used in Farsi. Episodes are short enough for a spare quarter of an hour on a phone or tablet as well as the living-room screen.